How to get your kids to do homework

First, a little history:
On our property we have three buildings. First is the house. Second is the detached garage. Third is a one bedroom former rental house....room....apartment....whatever.

It's VERY small. But for a single person, it would probably suffice. As for how we are going to use it.....my wife and I are thumb-wrestling over who gets it. Currently she is winning since the majority of the items that occupy the floor space in it, are hers.

I have a corner.

At one point it was to be an antique store. Then a photo studio. Then an apartment. Then a photo studio. Now we are sort of on to a continuous yard sale/garage sale place.

Let's just say we have lots of stuff. Also, because the weather is cold and getting colder and yard sales aren't exactly hot right now I thought we could put stuff inside, advertise in the paper and put out some signs, we might be able to sell our stuff. Once it's (ALL) sold there will be much more room and I (we) can turn it into a photo studio/guest house. Unless her stuff makes more money than my stuff, then I will go into the junk selling business.

(clutching chest) "ELIZABETH, here I come"


SOOOOOO, right now, I have the "studio" set up in our second floor kitchen. I also have it configured in high key right now. I'm thinking I might take over another wall too, so I can hang my black background like what's in the pictures below (From the banquet post). Ooooohhhhh, that sounds like a GREAT idea.

Here are a few shots of how I got the kids to do their homework. Plus the setups. (The option was either pose for me or do homework).


Here is the high key setup. High key is where it's normally only black and white pictures and usually mostly white.

The flash on the left is bare at M (full power) firing into the white background in order to totally blow it out (over expose the background). The goal is to make the model float in a colorless air. The flash on the right is at 1/16th power firing through the silver umbrella. I can move the umbrella unit around and closer or farther to increase or decrease shadows. But with high key, you are usually not creating as many shadows, but creating a very washed out (also known as "blown out" or "overexposed")effect. One neat thing about putting the background in the corner like this, is that it creates a wrap around lighting situation. I get reflected light on both sides of the model.

The actual lighting and background setup. It's adjusted in camera so you can see the Vivitar flashes, umbrella and background. You can also, just barely, see the window on the right wall behind the background. There is another one to the left, but at this time of day, it's mostly in the shade.



This is adjusted so you can see the white background blown out (extremely overexposed). Actually, this is the high key setup. I have a few shots of me in there, but you don't get to see those.... :)


Here are some of the results from this setup.


My daughter wasn't very happy that she had to pose for me. One of the thorns in her side is that I am a photographer. But her option was to go read a book. She would rather have her toenails torn out.



My son however, is a ham.